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A Telegraph Operator of Culture


By Sune Christian Petersen

Young, hopeful men were applying when the Navy employed telegraph operators for the first optical telegraph in 1801. Candidate Jens Peter Tønder was among the applicants who got the position of trust as "literary telegraph manager".


Special skills were required to send confidential, military information through the country. At the main stations the optical telegraphy was divided on two telegraph managers, a literary and a naval expert, who "in agreement and concordance" should "assist one another with their individual skills". As the Navy could not spare personnel in times of war, the telegraph managers were recruited among civilians. Only at the permanent telegraph girdles there were more or less firm positions. The other telegraph operators – mostly students – were typically employed on a temporary basis.

Telegraph Operator Tønder
In April 1801, Jens Peter Tønder (1773-1836) was employed as telegraph manager at Snoevlebakken (Snail Hill) telegraph station on the island of Møn. In his memoirs from 1832 he writes with some bitterness about his time in the telegraph service: "The telegraphs are most useful in times of war: I was employed as literary manager. We were totally ten students, most of us candidates, entrusted with this important post at the shores. Despite the heavy armaments only four obtained a pension: the other six could become probationers if they wanted to, but as they had in every way as good evidence of their competence as the four … all six volunteers resigned".

In a preserved telegraph journal Tønder describes his trip to the station accompanied by senior manager of the line, Captain Kaas, and a mate named Petersen. As a literary telegraph manager it was Tønders job to keep journals and convert messages into cipher codes. The literary telegraph manager was "solely responsible for the correctness of the signaling to which he himself has composed the style". The naval expert was responsible for the practical operation and maintenance of the station, and for "keeping the sharpest lookout for the sea and inform the literary manager about everything he notices of importance".

A Sad Destiny
Tønder’s employment as optical telegraph manager was short. His memoirs give us an impression of his background and life. His father was a general, but had so many sons that he could not afford a university education for all of them. A career as an officer might have been a possibility, but not in Jens Peter’s case as "reliable doctor’s certificates prove that I carry such a heavy and considerable bodily defect that I am to be considered crippled". A benefactor intervened and ensured that Jens Peter could graduate from the university. For some periods, however, Jens Peter Tønder had to earn his living as a writer of songs and broadsheet ballads.

A few years after he had written his memoirs, Jens Peter Tønder came to a bad end; murdered for money by a poor student, Worms, whom he gave French lessons. It became one of the most talked-about murder cases that year and a small pamphlet was issued describing the murder in details.

Tønder’s sad life story illustrates that the distinguished title of "literary telegraph manager" did not necessarily imply great opportunities.


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